A Polymorph's Depression
by Keytripper
Summary: In the months following Incredibles 2, Jack-Jack has trouble controlling his powers. As a result, he grows depressed. Maybe his sister can lift his spirits. From a prompt by crafordbrian17


Overlooking the city sat the Parr Household, secluded amongst the trees just enough to feel like a part of it, but otherwise stood out for the remarkable piece of architecture it was. To any passersby, it was the home of some distant billionaire. Very few knew that it actually belonged to the Incredibles, the city's most famed heroes. Sure there were many superheroes out there keeping the general population safe, but the Incredibles were a family of supers who fought crime together, watching each others' backs and fighting as a team whose abilities complemented each other. Plus, Elastigirl (aka Helen Parr) and Mr. Incredible (aka Robert Parr) were some of the only surviving supers from the glory days before they became illegal.

Yet the Parrs, aside from hero work, lived ordinary lives. While Bob and Helen saved the city full-time, the kids went to school, they still went grocery shopping, and they all had friends and loved ones who had no idea they were anything other than a regular family. And though they were anything but regular, that is exactly what they were: a family.

On this particular night, the youngest of the Parr children, Jack-Jack, sat up in his crib. He hadn't been able to fall asleep. And it wasn't because of his brother Dash's snoring – they used to share a room but didn't anymore, though Jack-Jack could still hear him because his senses were more heightened than that of others – it was because of another reason.

He heard the voices outside his room fade and the last of the lights in the hallway went out, leaving him completely in the dark save for a night-light in the corner next to his crib. He reached for his blanket and put it against his face, dried with tears.

It had all started earlier that evening.

"Dash, can you set the table?" Bob asked his son, trying to get him to do something productive so he would stop dashing – literally – through the kitchen.

"Where's Vi?" asked Helen.

"I'll get her," said Dash who in a few seconds had already set the table, as he ran upstairs before his Mom could say anything else.

Jack-Jack ran into the room and his father picked him up and strapped him into his high chair before he could protest. The past few months he had really taken off, and though he still wasn't completely potty trained, at the age of two he already knew his ABC's and how to multiply and divide simple numbers. Edna Mode, the woman who had designed the family's super suits, had said that it could be a sign of advanced intelligence, or just because he was a smart baby. They would have to wait until he was older to know for sure.

As for the powers Jack-Jack was confirmed to have, he didn't use them very often. OK, that was a lie, but he did use them a lot less often than when he originally got them. It seemed safer to take them as they came, avoiding them when he could and learning to control them only when he had to. He was a toddler after all, and he already had the World on his shoulders.

The Parrs all sat down at the table, except for Violet, the oldest of the three siblings. "Dash, where's Violet?" asked Helen.

"I don't know, in her room? She wouldn't come down."

"Bob, can you see what she's up to?" Bob sighed and got up from the table before heading upstairs.

"Mama, hungry!" said Jack-Jack.

"We have to wait for your sister, Jack," said Helen.

A few minutes later Violet trudged down the stairs and sat down with her father following her. Helen brought over food from the kitchen. Jack-Jack watched in expectation as his mother brought his plate closer and closer to the tray of his high-chair, licking his lips and his mother set down the plate of beautiful, delicious…

Broccoli?!

Jack-Jack was not normally a picky eater, but he HATED broccoli. Couldn't his Mom see that? Why was she trying to poison him?

"Violet, no reading at the table."

"Awh mom, I need to finish this for my quiz tomorrow!"

Jack-Jack stared at the broccoli, hating it more and more, wishing it didn't exist. "Well you can finish it after dinner, young lady."

Suddenly a laser shot out from Jack-Jack's eyes, engulfing the plate and the high-chair in flames.

"Bob, what are we going to do about this? It's been a few months and he still isn't in control of the lasers!" After they had put out the fire and thrown out what was left of the high-chair, they put Jack-Jack to bed early.

"I don't know, honey."

"What if next time it isn't just the lasers? What if he sets someone on fire, or sucks the kids into another dimension?"

"I don't know, alright! He could blow up the house and I still wouldn't have any idea!" They were silent for a minute, before Bob spoke in a calmer voice. "Look, we all knew it would take Jack-Jack a while to get used to his powers. Remember Dash?"

"Running into walls on accident is a lot easier to deal with than… turning into a demon baby."

"Maybe, but he doesn't mean to mess up."

Helen sighed. "I know."

They didn't realize that Jack-Jack had heard the whole thing.

Many people can't even remember when they were babies, but Jack-Jack could remember enough from the past few months to know he wasn't like normal toddlers. He hadn't even meant to use his powers that time. He knew he was a handful.

His parents didn't want him, he knew that much. They always left him at home with a sitter instead of taking him out to the store or the park or wherever they went. He always heard them talk about him when they thought he couldn't hear them.

Why couldn't he be normal, or at least have just one superpower, like his mom or dad or brother or sister? He only got in the way. He was useless.

When he had finally calmed down, Jack-Jack couldn't fall asleep because of how hungry he was. He had been put to bed after the accident, without anything to eat.

He climbed out of his crib and onto the ground next to it, then walked to the door with his blanket dragging behind him. He phased through the door (phasing was one of the few powers he wasn't afraid of using) and went downstairs to the kitchen. Except for bits of melted plastic stuck on the floor where his highchair used to be, it looked like it always did; high-tech and a bit cluttered from being lived in these past few months. Before it had felt like part of a fancy hotel; now it felt like home.

Jack-Jack retrieved his bottle from the fridge and sat on the ground, drinking it down quickly. Before he could finish, he heard footsteps. He was scared that it was one of his parents. He did not want them to be angry finding he snuck out of bed when he already melted his highchair earlier that evening. But the footsteps were not heavy like his father or steady like his mother, but very quiet, like whoever it was was trying to sneak down the stairs.

The light turned on and it was Violet. She jolted when she saw Jack-Jack. "What are you doing down here?" He didn't answer. She went to the fridge and grabbed a Tupperware container of macaroni. After setting it down at the table, she went back to where Jack-Jack was, crouching down next to him. She saw his dried tears and lifted him up in her arms. He clung to her. "Come on," she said. She carried him to the table and sat down, setting him in her lap.

After Jack-Jack lit the highchair on fire, Violet had taken the opportunity to rush upstairs to finish her book for her reading quiz the next day. It took several hours but once she had finished, she started regretting the decision to skip dinner. She was hoping to sneak downstairs for a snack, and finding Jack-Jack was the thing she least expected, since he should have been asleep hours ago.

"Jack-Jack, what's wrong?" Violet asked her youngest brother. "You can tell me."

"I'm useless," he moaned.

"What do you mean?" Violet was concerned; not only was it abnormal for someone Jack-Jack's age to feel useless, but she hadn't the slightest idea what could be causing such emotions.

"I-I can't use my powers wight. I can't do any-ting wight!" He leaned into his big sister, hugging her and burst into tears.

Now that she knew what was wrong, Violet understood. Even though she had only just started high school, she understood what it was like. She had to work harder than ever before just to pass, let alone maintain an A average, and while hero work had always seemed like an outlet before, now that she was more of an adult, so much was expected of her that it had become more of a chore. Every little mistake could cost lives in their line of work, so every small mistake made her feel like she was just getting in the way. Even though he was still a toddler, with hardly anything expected of him, he wanted to do his part, to be meaningful and not a burden.

But the one thing her brother was not was useless. "Jack-Jack, remember a few months ago? On the boat when Mommy and Daddy were hypnotized by those strange masks?" Normally asking a toddler to remember an event from months before would not have been futile, but Jack-Jack was not a normal toddler.

"W-w-when we fought de scween-slaver?"

"Yeah. Evelyn had Mom and Dad hypnotized. We went on the ship to rescue them. _You_ found them, and _you_ broke Mommy out of the mind-control. And you helped us take down the other hypnotized heroes. Don't you remember?"

He sniffled. "Yeah. But you could'a done it wit-out me."

"No, Jack-Jack, we couldn't have. We couldn't have stopped them because we couldn't get their goggles off. They were stronger and faster than us. If it weren't for your superpowers, the ship would have crashed!"

He quickly looked up at her with wide open eyes. "Really?"

Violet smiled. "Yes, really. You aren't useless. You just need to practice your powers more. When I was little, I would accidentally turn things invisible all of the time."

"But you didn't set stuff on fire."

"If I can fight a lot of bad guys without twenty different powers, imagine how cool you will be one day! You will be the coolest superhero ever, and can stop more bad guys than the rest of us."

"Are you sure?" She nodded.

"You are not useless, Jack-Jack." He yawned. "Come on, let's get you to bed." She put his bottle away and carried him upstairs to his crib.

"Tank-you Viowet," he said in a tired voice, and she kissed him on the cheek.

As Jack-Jack finally went to sleep that night, he no longer felt useless or depressed. 'Tomorrow,' he said to himself, 'I'll practice my powers so I'll be the coolest superhero ever.'


End file.
